May 14, 2005

UK PubMed Central Proposed

"A group of British science bodies said today (May 12) they were seeking proposals from organizations interested in running a new free-access archive of papers arising from research they have funded...."We want to make this happen, and it's a matter of thinking how we make it happen in practical terms," a spokesman for the Wellcome Trust told The Scientist. A briefing document outlining the requirements for interested parties is available on the Wellcome Trust's Web site. Tony Peatfield, head of policy at the MRC [Medical Research Council], said that while the MRC was very supportive of the project, the cost of the exercise may be of concern. "At present we don't know what the costs would be or how they would be met," he told The Scientist....Research Councils UK, an umbrella group for Britain's eight science and technology funding councils, is currently formulating its own policy on open access. A spokesman said the plan was currently being consulted on by universities and would be made public "in weeks rather than days, but not months." A person familiar with the content of the policy as it currently stands told The Scientist that it requires investigators to archive their papers in repositories where they exist, but not the creation of repositories."